The birthday party

Black-eyed Susans (Rudbeckia) I personally prefer the name brown-eyed Susans. They surely look like brown centres to me. Daisies are my favourite kind of flower.

One of my day lilies in the foreground with purple liatris (Gay Feather) in the background.

I want to show you a planter from my pond in the back yard. These are two lovely shades of pink petunias that I planted LAST YEAR. That's right! I never got around to putting any flowers in  these planters this spring; but as it turns out, I didn't have to. These lovelies self-seeded and have done very well for themselves in spite of the lack of attention from yours truly. If only all my planters would do this, I'd be ecstatic. Would save me a bundle. 

My clematis does very well in this spot of the garden. It gets sunshine all morning and into the afternoon, and because it like its roots shaded, it does well at the base of my "snowball hydrangea".  If you are looking closely at the photo, yes my fence needs painting desperately, yes those are small LED Christmas lights still up (I never take them down), and why yes, that is a rather tall weed growing next to the clematis (about 4 ft. tall actually). Just keeping it real folks.

I believe these are called Shirley poppies. I didn't plant them. They just appeared one year and self seed every year and everywhere, including my driveway. If all the weeds in my driveway looked like these, I wouldn't mind so much. They are very short-lived, but are very pretty with large full (peony-like) pinky mauve blooms. 

Smooth hydrangea (Snowball)

Golden Marguerites